Why Implement Cloud When Cloudwashing Will Suffice?

Jason Bloomberg
, ContributorI write and consult on digital transformation in the enterprise.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Surveys of IT executives regarding their Cloud Computing initiatives can be strangely misleading. Take for example two studies that fellow Forbes authors reported on over the last few months. Back in March, Forbes contributor Louis Columbus reported that a key take-away from an IBM study was that “Cloud computing has rapidly accelerated from 30% of CIOs mentioning it as a crucial technology for customer engagement in 2009 to 64% today.” And yet, a recent Forbes article by Joe McKendrick indicated that 57 percent of the executives in a recent Saugatuck survey reported that “they are leveraging the cloud to create new revenue-producing products and services.”

What is suspicious about these results is that the first study asked whether Cloud was a crucial technology, but not whether they were actually implementing it – while the second survey queried about actual implementations, and yet the numbers (64% to 57%) are suspiciously close together. Are we therefore to believe that about the same number of organizations believe Cloud is important as are actually implementing it? Or perhaps CIOs suddenly acted on their plans in the few weeks between reports?

Based upon conversations with many IT executives, the real story is likely to be more an example of pervasive wishful thinking. When an executive wants to leverage Cloud, they are likely to say they are leveraging Cloud, even though “leveraging” may simply mean “it’s on our long-term plan.”

Such exaggeration is an example of the familiar act of Cloudwashing. Cloudwashing typically refers to vendors’ and service providers’ exaggerated marketing, where they label a product as “Cloud” even when such designation is either completely false or at best, jumping the gun on a future capability.

But it’s not just vendors and service providers who Cloudwash – executives often exaggerate the truth as well. In some instances, immature Cloud technology has gained in popularity in part because it is immature, and thus not ready for full deployment. The two open source efforts OpenStack and CloudFoundry are examples of this trend. Both initiatives show great promise, but they will each likely take a few years before they are ready for broad enterprise deployment. As a result, some CIOs are only too happy to put OpenStack or CloudFoundry on their Cloud roadmaps, secure in the knowledge that they will now be able to present themselves as forward-looking and Cloud savvy, when in reality they won’t have to actually implement more than proofs of concept for many months to come.

Ironically, the fact that enterprise customers are Cloudwashing is actually encouraging some vendors to do the same. In fact, there are a number of Cloud vendors and service providers who are doubling down on their Cloudwashing. Instead of simply maturing their offerings in order to tell a true Cloud story, they have taken a sharp left turn, and now they’re trumpeting offerings that aren’t true Cloud offerings, not because they’re immature, but because they feel that their customers don’t really want Cloud after all.

For the companies who are following this path, here is their reasoning: Public Cloud is frightening, so customers want Private Cloud. But Private Cloud is too expensive and difficult, so they don’t really want Private Cloud, either. What they really want is managed hosting. Or perhaps: the customer says they want Software-as-a-Service, but they really want a Web-based application. Regardless, the basic pattern is that the customer doesn’t really want Cloud, they really want something else, but they want us to call it Cloud, so that’s what we’ll do.

What is so frightening about this trend is that in many cases, these vendors are right. Their customers don’t really want Cloud. Sure, they want to say they have Cloud, but they have various business reasons to shun the essential characteristics of Cloud Computing. Unlimited elasticity? Our application architecture doesn’t support it. Automated self-service provisioning? We don’t trust our users. Pay as you go pricing? No clue how to budget for that. Fully automated operational environment? Won’t work with the hodgepodge of equipment we currently have in our data center. Multitenancy? Sounds like computing in a public restroom – who knows what kind of sleazeball is in the next stall.

But of course, these doom-and-gloom Cloudwashers are not always right. True Cloud Computing – elastic, multitenant, self-service, automated, pay as you go Cloud Computing – is huge, and it’s here to stay. Furthermore, this true Cloud is making plenty of inroads into large enterprises – big companies and government agencies with plenty of legacy to go around. So what’s really going on here?

The underlying story is one of businesstransformation. Cloud Computing does not simply represent new ways of procuring IT assets or software. It represents new ways of doing business. Cloud, along with other Digital Transformation trends in IT including the rise of mobile technologies, the Internet of Things, and the Agile Architecture that facilitates the entire mess, are in the process of revolutionizing how businesses – and people – leverage technology. And as with any revolution, the change is both difficult to implement and impossible to understand while it’s happening.

The choices facing today’s executives are far more complex than is it Cloud or isn’t it, or should we do Cloud or not. Instead, the question is how to keep your eye on your business goals as technology change transforms the entire business landscape.